


Forbidden Fruit

by paulatheprokaryote



Category: The Cruel Prince, The Folk of the Air - Holly Black
Genre: F/F, F/M, He’s our little shit, Like literally everyone, Sympathetic view of cardan, but everything else is ya girl, cardan is pissed at everyone, cardan keeps clenching his fists, cardan/jude - Freeform, dialogue is word for word from the chapter, even if he’s a little shit, hints at dubcon/noncon intentions on locke's part, nicasia is angry and jealous, poor jude, the fruit scene in cardan's pov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-06
Updated: 2018-04-06
Packaged: 2019-04-19 03:35:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14228304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paulatheprokaryote/pseuds/paulatheprokaryote
Summary: The apple scene in Cardan's POV as promised.





	Forbidden Fruit

Cardan blinks lazily at the stars, registering only the barest of Noggle's inane lecture. He is going on and on about celestial events and political change and the last person he wants to think about was his brother. Well, any of his family, really. Balekin had treated him to a "swordplay lesson" the day before and the gashes on his back from the human servant are still fresh and sore. He should have stayed home. 

"Nicasia," says Noggle. "Is there some difficulty?" Cardan focused his eyes on her and she smirks at their instructor, unabashed. “None at all,” she says, her voice honey sweet. 

"Now, what can you tell me about falling stars? What would be the meaning of a shower of them in the last hour of a night?" He asks and Cardan grimaces before she even opens her mouth to reply. 

“A dozen births,” she says with a shrug of indifference.

“Deaths,” hisses Jude and Cardan’s eyes are steadfastly trained on her again.This is exactly why he was trying to sleep through class. 

It was clear that without the glowing orbs from the trees or the light from her candles, she couldn't see much beyond the light of the stars. She's squinting in Noggle's direction, but her gaze is off just enough that he can tell she's guessing his location based on her hearing. Her pupils are blown in the dark, as they would be with desire or fear. He swears at himself for noticing, for looking long enough to notice, but he can’t help it. He can’t get her out of his head. He watches as she closes her eyes, cheeks flushing, when Noggle praises her. He sees the wince she can’t restrain when he asks her to elaborate. 

Valerian is obviously annoyed though and he’s beginning to annoy Cardan. He starts to complain about how dull the class is and when that fails to get proper attention from his classmates, he decides to bring out the vulgar remarks. Noggle tries to redirect the class, calling on Elga instead, but the glare that Valerian sends her way has her stammering. 

"Shall I ask Jude again?" Noggle asks, trying to embarrass the faeries. They should be ashamed that a mortal knows more than they do. Instead, most of them were just spiteful.

"Or perhaps Cardan. Why don't you tell us?" Noggle turns his attention to him. Cardan witnesses the moment Noggle regrets it. 

“No,” Cardan says dismissively. He didn’t want to answer any questions on love. He didn’t want to spend another moment searching the stars for what he already knew and hated. 

"What was that?" Noggle gives him a chance to change his answer. Cardan doesn't. 

"It is as Valerian says. This lesson is boring. You will light the lamps and begin another, more worthy one." 

There is a long moment when Cardan thinks Noggle will defy him, but at long last he agrees. Cardan steals a glance at Jude, ignoring Nicasia’s giggles and Valerian’s satisfied smirk. Her lips are parted and she looks annoyed, which makes his lips curl every so slightly. 

Suddenly, all of the globes around them burst to life, and Jude’s dilated pupils shrink. She blinks rapidly, trying to adjust, and Nicasia catches Cardan’s gaze on Jude. Cardan gives her a hard look before turning to tell Valerian to stop being an asshole. There is a sudden smacking noise that reverberates through grove and Cardan whips around. Jude is holding her cheek, wide eyed, and Nicasia is gloating.

Cardan glares at her, mouth in a punishing line, and he wants nothing more in that moment for Nicasia to suffer. Her cheeks begin to flame, matching the sore redness of Jude's inflamed one. 

"Are you calling me out? Because then it's my right to choose the time and the weapon," Jude snarls and for one tense moment, Cardan pictures the scene. Nicasia on her knees, begging for Jude's mercy. Jude not bestowing it. Shame and desire fill him and he swallows thickly. He didn't think Jude would go easy on her. Cardan strides to them and hopes that he could annoy Jude enough that she’d storm off and forget about Nicasia’s assault. 

Cardan stops short just as he sees Valerian with a fist full of rotting fruit. He knocks into Jude and Noggle mutters something about the stars, but just then, Valerian shoves the fruit into Jude's mouth. Jude's eyes are wide with horror and Cardan finds his feet again. _What the fuck is wrong with everyone today?_ He's there in a moment as Jude spits out the apple. It rolls in the dirt, but her eyes are flashing something wild. She falls to her knees, fumbling for her basket. Nicasia snatches the basket from her grasp and twirls out of the way just as Valerian tackles Jude to the ground.

He’s on top of her, pinning her to the ground, and Cardan tightens his fist to prevent himself from hurting Valerian. If he hurt Valerian, Valerian would certainly hurt him back and probably hurt her worse. He enjoyed pain. Anyone's. Even Cardan's. He shoves the dirt covered apple back into her face, but she won't open her mouth. 

"Let me sweeten that sour tongue of yours," Valerian purrs and she's choking. Her arms are flailing and she's sputtering and it's clear she can't breathe. Cardan finds that he can’t breathe either. Her nails are trying to claw at Valerian's face and he's watching her, eyebrows raised with interest. Cardan grabs Jude’s basket from Nicasia who gives him a betrayed look. He grabs the salt and jogs back to Jude. 

Unable to help himself, Cardan kicks Valerian as hard as he can. Valerian rolls off her, holding his ribs and looking murderous. 

"Enough," Cardan says with every ounce of authority he can muster. His gaze lands on Jude, who is coughing and gasping for air, spitting up the fruit that had nearly killed her. He can feel the muscle in jaw twitch, giving away his composure. 

"Ruin my fun, will you?" 

For a long moment, Cardan thinks he’s going to fight Valerian. He isn’t much of a fighter, but he is furious enough that he had little doubt that he could kill Valerian with his bare hands. He can feel the salt mingling with the sweat of his palms and he takes a deep breath. He can’t stop the situation, if he did Valerian would just do worse to her when Cardan wasn’t around. He can’t stop it, but he can control it. Valerian is like a wildfire. His destruction is nearly impossible to put out, but it can be contained. Cardan let the salt slip from his fingers and it swirls in the wind. 

"What's wrong with you, Valerian," he says as his lips curl in a taunt. The twitching muscle in his jaw did little to hide his true feelings, but Valerian never was very observant. "If she dies, your little prank is over before it begins." 

"I'm not going to die," Jude protests, doe eyes searching Cardan's face to reassure him. Noggle, finally finding his voice in all of the violence, suggests someone take Jude home. Cardan can't agree more. "Everyone is so dull today," he says, but his voice is raspy and he's barely swallowing his emotion. 

Nicasia protests Jude going home, stroking the same cheek that she'd slapped only minutes before. For a long moment Cardan wonders if she's going to hit Jude again. He wonders what he'd do if she did. 

"I'd like to stay," Jude mumbles and Cardan glares at her. Her dreamy eyes find his and she gives him a huge, beaming smile. He feels a pang of _something_ in his stomach. He wants that smile to be real. To be his. He ignores it though. Noggle is a coward. He abandons Jude without any real resistance. Cardan's hands are fisted at his sides, his knuckles as white as the moon above. Adults are all useless.

The faerie girls are delighted. They're surrounding her, stroking her skin and teasing her, hoping she won't remember any of it. Locke suggests someone enchant her to forget it and Cardan nearly succumbs to the rage boiling inside him when Locke traces Jude's shoulder. 

Nicasia shuts down that idea, wanting Jude to feel all of the shame that she was bound to feel when she was no longer under the effects of the fruit. 

The girls are arguing over what to ask Jude first. They settle on the worst question. "Which one of us would you most like to kiss?" asks Flossflower, moving close to Jude's face. Cardan sucks in a breath. Jude grins up at the stars before answering, "I'd like to kiss all of you!"

A traitorous part of his mind screams that she hasn’t excluded him from that list and surely that counted for something? Cardan has bit the inside of his cheek so hard that he can taste the salty twang of his blood running over his tongue. The idea comes to him in a flash and he feels like he can breathe at last. _This could be worse._ He could not have a plan at all. He touches the pin on his chest and takes a deep, calming breath.

Nicasia gives him a sadistic smile before frowning at Jude. "You're wearing too many clothes," she says to Jude who frowns down at her dress thoughtfully, "And they've grown dirty. You should take them off," Nicasia says. Nicasia tilts her chin up at Cardan, smirking viciously. Jude abruptly stands up and looks as though she might fall over. Cardan fists his hands at his sides again to prevent himself from grabbing for her. He can feel the half moon marks biting into his palms, but he can’t unclench his hands. She steadies on her feet and then slips out of her gown in one sweeping, elegant motion. 

Suddenly, Cardan's mouth is dry. She's wearing some sort of green and black dotted thing that holds her breasts high and a pair of under-breeches that only barely covered her. Everyone is gaping at her and Cardan wishes desperately, suddenly, that it was him that had fed her that fruit. Somewhere quiet and alone. And then he frowns at the thought, repulsed by himself, because if he did want her, _and he wasn't ready to admit that_ , he didn't want her like this. Out of her mind and too _nice_. It wasn’t the real her. Hell, it might as well have been her twin. 

"Am I beautiful like you are?" she asks Nicasia with moon eyes and a relaxed brow. "No, " she says, her eyes darting to Valerian and then fixing Jude with an angry stare. It isn’t an outright lie, Cardan thinks, because they were beautiful in very different ways, but it was still a lie. _She is beautiful._ “You are nothing like us.” Jude give her a dreamy nod and a sigh as if she’d expected that to be the case. 

Valerian points suddenly to her rowan necklace, protecting her, and demands that she take it off. She agrees and Nicasia grins deviously. "Come lick my hands clean. You don't mind, do you? But you have to do it on your knees," she says, shooting Cardan another smirk. He knew it was meant for him. Nicasia wants to sear the image of them together in his mind. Tie his want for Jude to Nicasia. He shakes his head. 

Everyone gasps and giggles and Jude is crawling on her hands and knees toward Nicasia, ready to comply. 

"No!" Cardan says, his voice loud and unsteady. 

Everyone seems to take a step back. He looks frantically around for something, some way to end this. 

"Jude will come here and kiss my foot. She said she wanted to kiss us. And I am her prince, after all,” he says, hiding his desperation with arrogance.

He knows that she'll hate him when she comes to, but she would have hated all of them more if they didn't stop. If they degraded her. If it continued, there was no telling what they'd do to her or how it would escalate. Hell, they’d already stripped her down! Jude's laugh is boisterous and she smiles at him conspiratorially. 

Suddenly, Jude's shimmering hazel eyes are searching his and she looks worried. His heart thunders. _Does she know?_ He blinks and tries to be as cold as he can. 

"Well? Be quick about it," he says shortly. "Kiss my foot and tell me how great I am. Tell me how much you admire me," he says and he can feel Locke and Nicasia's annoyance. He can nearly hear Nicasia's chiding "Don't be like this" echoing in his ears. 

It works. 

"Enough," Locke says sharply. He's touching Jude again and Cardan wants to hit him, but he doesn't. "I'm taking her home." 

"Are you now?" Cardan taunts him, eyebrows raised. "Interesting timing. You like the savor of a little humiliartion, just not too much," he challenges him, but his eyes are on Jude. He wants her to know, when she's Jude again, that Locke didn't step in when he should have. He didn't step in when Nicasia hit her or when Valerian nearly killed her or when every single classmate wanted to humiliate her. 

He eyes Lock for a long moment. Long enough to make it clear that he wasn't going to allow Locke to green gown her or whatever he'd intended to do when he got her alone. Not in the state she was in. 

He pulls the acorn and oak leaf pin off his collar and takes Jude's hands gently in his. She looks at him, confused and without any of the usual hostility. He savors that look for a moment longer than he should. His tongue absently touches the tang of blood where he'd bit his cheek, and then he takes a sharp breath and stabs the point of the pin into her thumb. 

"Ow," she says, pulling her thumb into her mouth and sucking on it. She glares at Cardan and he tries not to smile. _There she is._

"Have a nice walk home," he says, watching them leave, a pit still in his stomach. 

When at last, he’s in the comfort of his own bedroom, he can’t get the image of her out of his mind. He does what he always does though. He pulls out his ink pot and begins scratching out her name, hoping he can scratch it out of his mind as well.

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! Okay, this is the fruit scene obviously. I've written like 5,000 words tonight and I'm KILLING my nano goal this month of 20,000 words total. I'll take requests for this fandom so if there's something you want me to write, an au you want me to hit, or a scene pov change up, let me know! :D I wrote this all tonight because I received a really nice comment on another story so comments and kudos truly feed your local writers. :P I'll be back to edit more tomorrow.
> 
> All dialogue belongs to Holly Black.


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